The Courage to Be An Enemy of the People

byDaniel Addis

Introduction

During a time of crisis, discord, or terror, should we speak out and stand up for what is right and put ourselves and our family in danger, or should we keep quiet, cooperate, and ignore our principles so that we can protect ourselves and our family?

This is the question of Henrik Ibsen's An Enemy of the People, and this is the question my students will answer, not with a quick "yes" or "no" answer, but with an answer resulting from deliberative reflection, thoughtful debate, and soul searching.

This is not just a hypothetical question. Our students face this conflict in their personal lives. They may have a friend who is beating his girlfriend, and if they stop him or report him, the friend will become their enemy. Their friends are about to do something awful, like rape a girl, and if he tries to stop them, they will turn on him. A girl may have a friend who neglects her baby, and if she reports it, her friend will become her enemy. Someone may one day realize that selling drugs for a hoodlum is destroying people's lives, but if he stops, the hoodlum may have him beaten up. A classmate may act belligerent with the teacher and disrupt class, but if someone tries to stop him, the classmate will assail this person, and he or she will be ostracized and stigmatized by other students.

This question pertains to U.S. politics as well. Following Reconstruction, the majority of citizens in the United States played it safe and essentially ignored the racist behavior of their government and fellow citizens. People were afraid to speak out, and those that did were threatened, attacked, and/or killed. When African-Americans spoke out, they faced death.

Dissent has been especially dangerous during wartime. In the opinion of historian Michael Linfield, during World War I, "the U.S. government trampled on virtually every democratic principle guaranteed by the Constitution" (1990, p.33) in an effort to make the world safe for democracy. In Freedom under Fire, Linfield supports his conclusion with analyses of legislation and statistics and a large number of anecdotes. In 1917, when a group of women protested in front of the White House and unfurled a banner that quoted a statement from the Declaration of Independence, they were arrested (Linfield, 1990, p. 41). When a Harvard Law professor published criticism of the Espionage and Sedition Acts, the Justice Department coerced Harvard to bring the professor before Harvard's Board of Overseers which narrowly acquitted him (Linfield, 1990, p. 45). When a man declared "We are going over to Europe to make the world safe for democracy, but I tell you we had better make America safe for democracy first," he was convicted, and his conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court (Linfield, 1990, p.53). In the fall of 1927, when the Saturday Press published articles accusing the local governmental and community leaders of graft and corruption, the paper was convicted of printing "malicious, scandalous, and defamatory" statements, and the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the conviction, stating in its opinion that the freedom of the press only meant "the right to publish the truth . . . with good motives, and justifiable ends. . ." (Linfield, 1990, p.53).

Leading up to World War II and during the war, Congress passed sedition acts which made speaking out against the government and standing up for one's beliefs dangerous. Lawyers who defended people accused under the Smith Act were harassed by the government. The Attorney General warned the lawyers who defended accused Communists that they would be taken to the "legal woodshed for a definite and well-deserved admonition" (Rehnquist, 1998, p. 78). In one case, the lawyers of convicted defendants were charged with contempt of court and served sentences ranging from thirty days to six months (Rehnquist, 1998, p. 78).

The Cold War created its cases of suppressing free speech too. In 1946, the columnist Drew Pearson received a letter from the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) asking him what he meant when he said, "Make democracy work," and they implicitly threatened to bring him before the HUAC. When witnesses refused to cooperate with the HUAC, the committee published their names, addresses, and places of employment so that employers would fire them and vigilantes would attack them. Uncooperative entertainers were "blacklisted," meaning they were excluded from employment (Rehnquist, 1998, p. 89-91).

Blacklisting and intimidation continued during the Vietnam War. The national television networks blacklisted folk singer Pete Seeger because he opposed the war. One week before the end of the television season, CBS threw the Smothers Brothers off the air. The network president claimed they had not submitted a review tape of the upcoming show to the network in a timely manner. The Smother Brothers claimed it was because they did sketches that opposed the war and poked fun at aspects of traditional American life (Bodroghkozy, accessed 29 July 2005). When Daniel Ellsberg, an employee of the Pentagon, published the "Pentagon Papers" which detailed how elected and appointed leaders had systematically misled the American people during the Vietnam War, the Nixon White House put Ellsberg under unlawful surveillance, and they ordered a break-in of his psychiatrist's office for the purpose of obtaining information that could be used to defame him. Charles Colson, a White House official, told Howard Hunt, a former FBI agent, that the goal is to "put this bastard into one hell of a situation" (Stone, 2004, p. 515).

Opponents of the Iraq War have not been blacklisted, but they have been personally attacked. Leading up to the war, those who opposed it were labeled "un-American" and "supporters of Sadaam Hussein." Those who criticized the war during its operation have been accused of putting American soldiers at risk and giving comfort to the enemy. When a senator read the contents of an FBI agent's report that detailed abusive treatment at the Guantanamo Bay prison and compared the treatment to Nazi and other tyrannical regimes, he was lambasted as slandering our country and debasing our soldiers and putting them at risk. Eventually, under pressure from his party, he gave in and apologized for his remarks. Although he was not arrested, the incident shows that when someone speaks out against an injustice, he suffers an awful backlash

The question of standing up for what is right and the oppression it brings is brought home in this unit. The literature, discussion, and composition will spur my students to think ethically and politically. The students will weigh self-interest against the good of the community and examine the effects of dissenting and the courage to dissent. As they grapple with this dilemma, they will grapple with questions such as: Does our life have meaning? Is doing right more important than surviving? Can we live with ourselves without standing up for our principles? They will learn about the tendency of people to rally behind a position, misuse authority, and squash those who oppose them. As they reflect on these issues, students will mature and develop into thoughtful people.

This unit will show students that literature is more than just stories that entertain. They are works of art that deal with complex issues. The meaning is not understood until one reflects and unpacks the passage, and when one does this, he perceives the world in a new light.

As the students progress through this unit, they will hone their language skills, analyze diction, evaluate characters, synthesize themes, write coherently, narrate flowingly, construct strong arguments, and learn about writing a literary analysis paper.

Before Reading An Enemy of the People

The Court Martial of Jackie Robinson

Strategy

The story below is an adaptation of a chapter of Jackie Robinson by Arnold Ramersad (1997). I will Xerox it, and hand it out to the class. The students will work in groups of three. Reading and working together, they will underline the significant phrases and make notations. Each group will explain to the class a section of the story, bring out its important points, and lead discussion about its contentious issues. Details of this activity are in the Lesson Plans section.

Text of the Story

In 1942, black soldiers not only had to fight against the Germans and the Japanese, they had to fight against Jim Crow (the legal system of discrimination and segregation of African-Americans). Following Pearl Harbor, Jackie Robinson, like thousands of other young men, signed up for the Army. He was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas where he excelled. On the gunnery range, he scored so high he was classified as an expert marksman. His character was rated excellent. Despite his outstanding performance and college degree, he was turned down when he applied for Officer Candidate School, and no one explained why. Many white men, who scored lower than he on various tests, were assigned to the officers school. Jackie was assigned to take care of the horses in the stables.

Later that year, the Army changed its policy of not admitting black people into the officers school, and Jackie attended and graduated as a second lieutenant. However, his assignment was morale officer, hardly a position of importance. Still, Jackie performed his duties conscientiously. During his tenure, several black soldiers complained to him about conditions on the base. At the Post Exchange, where soldiers bought soft drinks and ate snacks, the black soldiers had to wait for a few seats assigned to blacks, while "white" seats went unused. Jackie telephoned the provost marshal to complain. The provost said, "Lieutenant, let me put it to you this way. How would you like to have your wife sitting next to a nigger?" Later, Jackie said, "Pure rage took over me. I was so angry that I asked him if he knew how close his wife had ever been to a nigger. I was shouting at the top of my voice. Every typewriter in headquarters stopped. The clerks were frozen in disbelief." After the incident was reported to the battalion commander, additional seats were added for blacks.

Eventually, Jackie made progress in his military career. He was sent to Fort Hood, Texas to the 761st Tank Battalion, which was scheduled to go overseas and into combat later that year. He was assigned to lead a battalion of tanks. However, one evening his military career came to a halt. He boarded a city bus that would take him to a hospital where he was being treated for an ankle injury. Jackie walked down the aisle of the bus to the back, as required during this period. He saw his friend's wife, a lightly complected black woman, sitting in the middle of the bus. He sat down next to talk with her. The driver thought the lady was white. After driving five or six blocks, the white driver stopped the bus and ordered Jackie to move to the back of the bus. Jackie forcefully said, "No, I'm going to sit here; I'm not going to move to the back of the bus. You had better sit down and drive the bus wherever you are going."

The bus driver ordered him two more times to move to the back of the bus, using the word "nigger." Jackie refused, using a countering obscenity. The bus driver said, "You gonna wish you had gone to the back of the bus when we get to the Central Bus Station." A white woman came aboard, and she threatened to press charges against Jackie.

The military police were called, and Jackie was put into the back of a pick-up truck. A private came over and asked, "You got that nigger Lieutenant." Jackie snapped, "Look here, you son-of-a-bitch, don't you call me no nigger." Then a Corporal came over and asked what was going on, and the dispatcher said, "The trouble was with this here nigger lieutenant." Again Jackie angrily replied.

When the Captain arrived, instead of asking Jackie what happened, he asked the white private, who reported a false version of events. Jackie interrupted the private to dispute what he was saying, but the Captain ordered Jackie to go outside. Another Captain came and when Jackie followed him into the guard room, the Captain growled, "No one comes into the room until I tell him!" Jackie protested at being kept out while a private was allowed in. The Captain repeated his order. Later Jackie said that the Captain "did not seem to recognize me as an officer at all. But I did consider myself an officer and felt I should be addressed as one."

Eventually, Jackie was let brought into the guard room and questioned. A stenographer, a white woman, was transcribing the interrogation. Stenographers silently record the testimony, but this particular stenographer interjected herself in the testimony and disparaged Jackie. In the middle of one of Jackie's statements, she said, "Don't you know you have no right sitting up there in the white part of the bus?" A few minutes later, she scolded Jackie: "If you had completed your statement it would have made sense!" Jackie told her, "If you had put down Captain Bear's question, it would have made sense." The woman then picked up her purse and went out. The Captain went after her and persuaded her to come back.

Jackie was placed under "arrest in quarters," which meant he would be considered under arrest at the hospital, where they were going to take him. At the hospital, a white doctor, who knew Jackie, told him that there was talk about a drunken black lieutenant trying to start a riot. The doctor advised Jackie to take a blood alcohol test at once. The test proved that he had not been drinking.

The Captain wanted to court-martial Jackie, but the battalion Colonial refused to endorse the charges. So, the Captain got Jackie transferred to a battalion where the Colonial would endorse the charges. When a friend saw Jackie taken away, he later said, "He was handcuffed, and there were shackles on his legs. Robinson's face was angry, the muscles on his face tight, his eyes half closed."

When the trial came up, all the charges relating to what happened on the bus were dropped. Instead, Jackie was accused of behaving disrespectfully towards a captain and disobeying a captain's command. The testimony of the military policemen depicted Jackie as a belligerent, unruly man, but they described themselves as respectful and fair. The white lady on the bus testified in a similar manner. She added that Jackie had told her, "'Don't f____ with me,' three or four times." However, the bus driver testified that this lady had said aloud, "I don't mind waiting on them all day, but when I get on the bus at night to go home, I'm not about to ride all mixed up with them." The private denied calling Jackie a "nigger," but the bus dispatcher testified that the private called him "nigger." The friend of the white lady described Jackie as determined but not abusive. She said that he only told the bus driver he was not going to move to the back, and he didn't use any obscenities.

During Jackie's testimony, his attorney asked him, "Do you know what a nigger is?" Jackie answered: "I looked it up once, but my grandmother gave me a good definition. She was a slave, and she said the definition of the word was a low, uncouth person, and pertains to no one in particular, but I don't consider that I am low and uncouth. I looked it up in the dictionary afterwards and it says the word nigger pertains to the negroid or negro, but it is also a machine used in a saw mill for pushing logs into the saws. I objected to being called a nigger by this private or by anybody else. When I made this statement that I did not like to be called a nigger, I told the Captain, I said, 'If you call me a nigger, I might have to say the same thing to you. . . . I do not consider myself a nigger at all. I am a negro, but not a nigger."

During his closing remarks, Jackie's defense attorney concluded by saying this was "a situation in which a few individuals sought to vent their bigotry on a Negro they considered 'uppity' because he had the audacity to exercise his rights that belonged to him as an American and as a soldier."

Jackie was found not guilty.

The Story of Franz JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter

Teaching Strategy

The story below is an adaptation from the account on the website by Jim Weeks (downloaded 7 July 2005) entitled "Franz Jagerstatter." (see Bibliography). I will Xerox my adaptation and hand it out to the class. The class will be organized in groups of groups of three. As in the previous story, they will read the story and underline the significant phrases and make notations. I will ask different groups to explain different sections of the story and bring out the important points of the tale and lead discussion about the contentious issues of the story.

For the next part of the lesson, I will assign the groups one of JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter's journal entries. Working together, they will read and notate the text, and figure out JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter's main points. Then, as before, they will present the text to the class and lead discussions about JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter's point of view. Details are in the Lesson Plans section.

Text of the Story

If you had lived in St. Radegund, Austria during the 1920's, you would have known a licentious teenager named Franz JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter. Franz drank, gambled, and ran with a gang. He often got into fights with boys of other gangs. Like the typical teenage boy, he flirted with girls, and in his early twenties, he fathered a child, but did not act as a father to him. He left town and did not return until several years later.

When he returned to St. Radegund in 1934, the townspeople were surprised to see a religious man. He attended mass regularly, read a lot, spent time alone in meditation and prayer, and discussed religion with various people. In a letter to his godson, Franz wrote, "I can say from my own experience how painful life often is when one lives as a halfway Christian; it is more like vegetating than living."

A few years later, Franz fell in love and married a pious Catholic woman. They spent their honeymoon in Rome where he became more devout. In the ensuing years of their marriage, Franz and his wife, and their three daughters, lived a quiet, devotional life in St. Radegund.

However, in 1938, everything changed. Adolf Hitler ordered his army into Austria and annexed Austria to Germany. The Nazis transformed Austria into a police state and terrorized its citizens into submission. Church leaders told their congregations to follow the Nazi edicts and do not in any way offer resistance. Franz, though, condemned the Nazis and ignored his neighbors' pleas to keep quiet. When it came time to vote for the annexation to Germany, Franz was the only one in the town to vote no. Later, Franz wrote, "I believe that what took place in the spring of 1938 was not much different from what happened that Holy Thursday nineteen hundred years ago when the crowd was given a free choice between the innocent Savior and the criminal Barabbas."

In 1939, Franz received a draft notice, and he reported to training, but, because he was a farmer, he was released a few months later. When he came home, he told his wife, "If they call me up, I will not serve." So in 1943, when Franz was drafted into the army, he ignored the notice. His friends pleaded with him to report, but he refused. The policeman who would have to arrest him also pleaded with him. Finally, Franz gave in and reported to the army, but he told his commanding officer that he was a conscientious objector. The officer arrested him and locked him in the stockade. During his trial, Franz said that not serving in the German army was "a matter for a person's individual conscience and that every man is responsible for his own actions before God." In his journal he wrote:

For what purpose, then, did God endow all men with reason and free will if, as so many also say, the individual is not qualified to judge whether this war started by Germany is just or unjust? What purpose is served by the ability to distinguish between good and evil?

In another journal entry, Franz wrote:

I can easily see that anyone who refuses to acknowledge the Nazi Folk Community and also is unwilling to comply with all the demands of its leaders will thereby forfeit the rights and privileges offered by that nation. But it is not much different with God: he who does not obey all the commandments set forth by Him and His Church and who is not ready to undergo sacrifices and to fight for His Kingdom either ñ such one loses every claim and every right under that Kingdom. . .

Now any one who is able to fight for both kingdoms and stay in good standing in both communities (that is, the community of saints and the Nazi Folk Community) and who is able to obey every command of the Third Reich ñ such a man, in my opinion, would be a great magician. I for one cannot do so. And I definitely prefer to relinquish my rights under the Third Reich and thus make sure of deserving the rights granted under the Kingdom of God.

The Nazi authorities told Franz if he relented, he would be a free man. They offered him a place in the medical corps, but Franz refused, saying accepting it would free up another man to fight in the army. His friends and the prison chaplain told him his family needed him, and he was putting them at risk by defying the Nazis. Franz wrote a response in his journal:

Again and again, people try to trouble my conscience over my wife and children. Is an action any better because one is married and has children? Is it better or worse because thousands of other Catholics are doing the same?

Franz believed there was something more important than himself and his family:

We Catholics apparently entertain hopes of winning a glorious victory for our faith without any battle ñ and, to top it all, we expect to do this after first fighting for the enemy and helping him win his victory! Can anyone really believe this is possible? In my opinion such a thing has never happened throughout the whole history of the world. Modern man, of course, is very inventive, but if he has progressed so far as to discover a way of winning a victory without a struggle, I have not heard of it.

In another journal entry, Franz condemns the bishops and priests who did not oppose the evils of Nazism.

If the Church stays silent in the face of what is happening, what difference would it make if no church were ever opened again?

Friends and priests told Franz that he, as a citizen, was not responsible for the acts of the government, and he was not in a position to pass judgment on the government. Furthermore, Germany was defeating Bolshevism. Taking the military oath, they told him, was not an endorsement of the policies of the government, it was only following orders. Franz wrote:

It is very sad to hear again and again from Catholics that this war, waged by Germany, is perhaps not so unjust because it will wipe out Bolshevism. It is true that at present most of our soldiers are stuck in the worst Bolshevist country, and simply want to make harmless and defenseless the people who live there and defend themselves. But now a question: what are they fighting in this country - Bolshevism or the Russian people? When our Catholic missionaries went to a pagan country to make them Christians did they advance with machine guns and bombs in order to convert and improve them?

Most of these noble warriors for Christianity wrote home that if they only had the means to hand things out, everything would go much faster... If we look back a little into history, we note almost the same thing again and again: if a conqueror attacks another country with war, they have not normally invaded the country to improve people or even perhaps give them something, but usually to get something for themselves. If we fight the Russian people, we will get much from that country which is of use to us here. If one were merely fighting Bolshevism, these others things - minerals, oil wells or good farmland - would not be a factor."

On August 9, 1943, Franz was taken to Brandenburg where he was executed on the guillotine. His beheading was swift and silent, but his actions were enduring and loud.

An Enemy of the People

Summary

There is something poisonous in the midst of a little town in Norway. The town has constructed a system to bring underground water to public baths. These baths have attracted large numbers of people to the town, which stimulates the economy. Dr. Stockman, after noticing that many of the people using the baths have become ill, becomes suspicious about the water. He sends off samples of to be analyzed, and the results show that the water is toxic. Concerned about the people, he plans to publish his discovery in the town's newspaper. In his mind, the health of the people overwhelmingly outweighs the town's economic concerns. However, when the town leaders, including his brother the mayor, hear about his findings, the situation becomes complicated. His brother is one of the leaders who invested money in the baths, and he and his fellow investors will lose it all if Stockman's findings become public. Also, he and the other leaders of the town will be castigated and perhaps voted out of office for not constructing a proper water system for the baths. Dr. Stockman's brother warns and threatens Dr. Stockman that he will lose his career if he persists in publishing his findings. However, Dr. Stockman remains adamant and confident that right will prevail.

However, it does not work out that way. One by one, people of the town turn against him and try to stop him from publishing his findings. His wife, fearing he will lose his job and not be able to support his family, pressures him to keep silent. The town's union leader, at first supports Stockman, but after the mayor tells him that the taxes of the working class will be raised to pay for the improvements to the water system, he turns against Stockman too. The newspaper editor is eager to publish the findings, but after he talks to the mayor and hears about the economic price his newspaper will pay if the baths are shut down, he turns against Stockman. He refuses to print Stockman's findings and instead prints an article that the mayor wrote. Within a day, Dr. Stockman finds himself an enemy of the people.

Stockman wonders if he should risk himself and his family for his convictions. It is a terrible choice, and Stockman hesitates, but he remains steadfast. He proclaims himself "an enemy of the people" and rallies his family with the words: "But remember now everybody. You are fighting for the truth, and that's why you're alone. And that makes you strong. We're the strongest people in the world . . . and the strong man must learn to be lonely."

The Text

We will use Arthur Miller's adaptation of An Enemy of the People. Miller worked with a translator and "attempted to make An Enemy of the People as alive to Americans as it undoubtedly was to Norwegians, while keeping it intact" (Miller 8). Miller's adaptation reads more smoothly than other translations of the play.

Studying an Enemy of the People

The students will read and analyze An Enemy of the People in groups of three or four. Each group will have about ten pages. Each group will prepare a presentation and lead the class in reading the section and discussing it. Then they will assign a journal topic on the reading. More details are in the Lesson Plan Section.

Research Essay

The students will write a research essay about people being abused, standing up for their rights and/or persecuted for standing up for their rights. The details of this assignment are in the Lesson Plans section. After composing the essay, the students will create an image that depicts their story. They will use the image in their presentation of their research essay to the class.

Lesson Plans

Reading the Two Real Life Stories

Objectives

Working in groups, the students will read and analyze the text and uncover its important points. They will create provocative questions and/or point out provocative phrases and lead the class in discussing them.

Activities

The two stories "The Court-martial of Jackie Robinson" and "The Story of Franz JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter" will be studied separately. I will Xerox the stories for the students. The students will be in groups of three. In their groups, the students will read the stories and highlight significant phrases. Each group will be assigned different sections of the story, and they will prepare discussion points about that section. Each group will lead discussion about those particular sections.

In addition, for "The Story of Franz JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter," I will assign the groups one of JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter's journal entries. Working together, they will read and notate the text, and figure out JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter's main points. Then, as before, they will present the text to the class and lead discussion about JÃ¤gerstÃ¤tter's point of view. I will evaluate the student's performance using the rubric below.

Rubric

(table 05.03.01.01 available in print form)

Teacher should average the scores of each criterion for the final grade. Four = A. Three = B. Two = C. One = D.

Reading the Play

Objective

Working in groups, the students will read and analyze An Enemy of the People. They will generate discussion points and a journal topic that they will assign to the class. In a presentation to the class, each group will dramatically read and perform their passage. Then they will lead the class in discussion of the passage. The entire class will compose a coherent essay that will elaborate their point of view about an issue raised by the particular passage.

Activities

The students will be in groups of four and five. Each group will be assigned about ten pages of the play. Working together, they will prepare a presentation for the class. Their presentation will include dramatically reading and performing the text, leading a discussion of the text, and assigning a journal topic to the class.

In this strategy, the students must assign each other a role and practice it. They will be graded on how well they dramatize the parts. They must analyze the text, note important passages, bring up important questions about the text, and lead the class in a discussion of the text. During discussion, I hope that students from other groups will compare their section to the section being presented. For example, if one group has a theory about a character, members of another group can disagree and bring up evidence from their text to dispute it. I will engage the class in any aspect of the text that was overlooked.

Assignment

At the end of group's presentation, they will assign the class a journal topic which they will do as homework assignment. When the class returns the assignment the next day, the group will evaluate them, using the rubric below.

Rubric

(table 05.03.01.02 available in print form)

Teacher should average the scores of each criterion for the final grade. Four = A. Three = B. Two = C. One = D.

Research Essay

Objectives

Students will use Google to search the Internet for an article that pertains to people being abused. They will analytically read the article and, in a coherent essay, narrate the episode and explain their judgment of it. Students will revise their essay, and evaluate each other's essay based on a rubric.

Activities

Students will be paired. Each pair will write about the same article, but in their own way on separate computers. First, they will search the Internet, find an article, download it, and print it. To find an article, the class will come up with the Search phrases for Google. If they have trouble, I will suggest: "crackdown on dissent," "civil liberties," and "violation of human rights." When the students find a pertinent article, they will show it to me for approval.

The students will do this at school in the computer lab because many of them do not have Internet at home. However, a teacher may assign this for homework if the students have access to the Internet.

In pairs, the students will read the article, highlight, and notate the pertinent information. Sitting next to each other at computer terminals, the pair of students will summarize the details of the episode, focusing on paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is a serious problem with many students. As they begin writing, they fall into the rut of copying from the text. Therefore, a teacher must emphasize that they paraphrase and not transcribe. They will save this as [Last Name.First Name.Draft 1]. Then they will add an introduction with a thesis, revise the body, and explain their judgment about the episode (i.e.: how it was handled, how it should have been handled, and reasons supporting their judgment); then they will compose a closing that re-emphasizes their thesis. The students will save this as [Last Name.First Name.Draft 2]. They will print it and give it to their partner to evaluate. Their partner should give constructive criticism. Then they will write a final draft and save it as [Last Name.First Name.Draft 3]. They will print all of their drafts.

About two classes later, I will pair the students with another partner, and they will evaluate each other's paper, using the rubric below. The final grade will be an average of all the criteria grades. They will have one-on-one conference where they discuss the grade.

Grading Rubric

(table 05.03.01.03 available in print form)

Teacher should average the scores of each criterion for the final grade. Four = A. Three = B. Two = C. One = D.

The Media and the War on Terrorism. Ed. by Stephen Hess and Marvin Kalb. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003.

Meyer, Michael, "Introduction to An Enemy of the People" in The Plays of Ibsen, Volume III. New York: Pocket Books, 1986. 375-393.

Background information about Ibsen and the play.

Miller, Arthur. An Enemy of the People: An Adaptation of the Play by Henrik Ibsen. New York: Penguin Books, 1979.

The American dramatist Arthur Miller, working with a Norwegian linguist, transforms the play's language into contemporary American English and makes a few small changes to the text.

Ramersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.

A biography of Jackie Robinson.

Rehnquist, William. All the Laws but One: Civil Liberties in Wartime. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.

An examination of the social context and the Supreme Court rulings of cases involving an infringement on individual liberties during wartime. The book weighs the importance of defending the nation against the importance of individual rights.

Schultz, Bud and Ruth Schultz. The Price of Dissent: Testimonies to Political Repression in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

Various people such as African-Americans, people involved in the labor struggle, anti-war protesters, and anti- nuclear protesters narrate their struggle against powerful people who were determined to silence their voice of dissent.